How To Convert Website Visitors Into Customers

The hardest part of ecommerce is converting visitors to your website into paying customers. It’s all well and good getting 1000 visitors a day to your website but it’s pretty pointless if they are all leaving without signing up to your service, making a purchase or whatever the goal of your site is. So what can you do to make sure that your website is more user friendly and more appealing to visitors to make that all important purchase? Here are some tips for you to bear in mind.

Identity Where You’re Going Wrong

If your website is not getting the desired results then don’t let your pride get in the way of sorting out the problem. Your site may be your baby and your pride and joy but if it’s not bringing you customers then it is failing in its function.

You can identify where you’re going wrong by using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools which are free applications that monitor the activity on your website such as the number of visitors, which pages they visited, how much time they spent on the site etc. You can then use this information to see at what point people are dropping out of your site without making a purchase. Perhaps they are getting to the contact form and find that there are too many questions which is putting them off or maybe they can’t find the checkout process that they need to go through.

Always Keep The User In Mind

Usability is the key to having a website that performs well. No matter what you do to your website or how much money you invest in it you must ensure to always consider the needs of the people who will visit the site.

You may be tempted to overload your site with information to show your expertise but this will only bore and confuse people, keep it concise and to the point… only give them the information that they need. It can also be tempting to fill your content full of anchor text designed to improve your SEO rankings, a little bit of this is fine i.e. around 10% but anymore will not make sense to potential customers and result in you coming across as unprofessional.

Include Call To Actions

Call to actions encourage visitors to make a transaction or to sign up. They are often icons that the user can click on that say something like “Get In Touch” or “Buy Now” and once clicked on they bring the user straight to the checkout or contact area. It is a good idea to include a call to action on every page of your site and that way you are making it as easy as possible for them to make a transaction. The last thing that you want is for a potential customer to have to work to find how to make a purchase or sign up, it should be made as easy as possible.

Sam Forest runs a local SEO company that offers bespoke SEO services such as usability analysis to help clients make the most of their websites and generate more sales through them.